Threads and traces : true, false, fictive / Carlo Ginzburg ; translated by Anne C. Tedeschi and John Tedeschi.

Translated from the Italian.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-312) and index.

"Carlo Ginzburg's brilliant and timely new essay collection takes a bold stand against naive positivism and allegedly sophisticated neo-skepticism. It looks deeply into questions raised by decades of post-structuralism: What constitutes historical truth? How do we draw a boundary between truth and fiction? What is the relationship between history and memory? How do we grapple with the historical conventions that inform, in different ways, all written documents? In his answers, Ginzburg peels away layers of subsequent readings and interpretations that envelop every text to make a larger argument about history and fiction. Interwoven with compelling autobiographical references, Threads and Traces bears moving witness to Ginzburg's life as a European Jew, the abiding strength of his scholarship, and his deep engagement with the historian's craft"--Provided by publisher.

"This book is a translation of historian Carlo Ginzburgʼs latest collection of essays. Through the detective work of uncovering a wide variety of stories or microhistories from fragments, Ginzburg takes on the bigger questions: How do we draw the line between truth and fiction? What is the relationship between history and memory? Stories range from medieval Europe, the inquisitional trial of a witch, seventeenth-century antiquarianism, and twentieth-century historians."--Provided by publisher.

Description and citation -- The conversion of the Jews of Minorca (A.D. 417-418) -- Montaigne, cannibals, and grottoes -- Proofs and possibilities: postscript to Natalie Zemon Davis, The return of Martin Guerre -- Paris, 1647: a dialogue on fiction and history -- The Europeans discover (or rediscover) the shamans -- Tolerance and commerce: Auerbach reads Voltaire -- Anacharsis interrogates the natives: a new reading of an old best seller -- Following the tracks of Israël Bertuccio -- The bitter truth -- Stendhal's challenge to historians -- Representing the enemy: on the French prehistory of the protocols -- Just one witness: the extermination of the Jews and the principle of reality -- Details, early plans, microanalysis: thoughts on a book by Siegfried Kracauer -- Microhistory: two or three things that I know about it -- Witches and shamans.